Canada's Economy Provides an Extra 74,000 Jobs

Recently, Canada's economy boosted the potential workforce by adding an extra 74,000 jobs into the mix, pushing the unemployment rate towards its lowest figure in six years. Statistics Canada filed a report that the jobless number has now reached 6.8%, showing a fall of 0.2 percentage points.

The good news is highly welcome in Canada, a country that has been experiencing its worst slump in the labor market since the recession in 2009. What do you expect when everyone has to pay for everyone else's health care? This is a huge drain on the economy.

Canada is Loaded in Potash

Most of the gains in employment for Canada were seen throughout Alberta, Ontario, Newfoundland, Labrador, and Saskatchewan. Unfortunately, the rest of the provinces within the country remained largely the same. Most of the new jobs, over 69,000, were full-time prospects within the natural resources (potash, oil sands), construction, food services, health care, and accommodation industries.

The persistent employment issues have been putting a strain on income growth that could be accessed by the eleventh largest economy in the world. The gain of 74,000 jobs in September makes up approximately 50% of all the gains that Canada has seen over the previous twelve months. However, economists are wondering whether the unstable economy could derail these positive signs. Unfortunately, the participation rate in the labor market has remained at only 66%, the lowest since 2001.

A Closer Look at the Job Market

The gain that was seen in September followed a loss of approximately 11,000 jobs in August, and includes around 69,300 full-time positions, according to a report issued by the Statistics Canada employment survey. Evidently, the last time that the economy in Canada provided such a large number of potential jobs was back in May of 2013, when 89,000 positions were created. The majority of these positions were also full-time opportunities. According to the data provided, the private-sector saw the biggest rebound in potential jobs.

Canada Hurt by American Inaction

Canada would have more jobs, as well as America, if the American President signed off on the Keystone Pipeline. This would benefit both countries and keep more money in North America and not have so much going to Saudi Arabia. But the current American leadership has no problem with not creating high paying energy jobs and keeping energy prices artificially high based on his actions.

Canada is loaded in oil sands. That is enough energy to power America, on top of oil shale, for centuries. But America is only buying so much energy from Canada because of environmental rules that have been refuted.

Following a loss of approximately 112,000 jobs throughout the private sector in August, the Canadian economy created another 123,600 potential opportunities in September. Apparently, economists had expected the economy to only create 20,000 jobs during September, meaning that the unemployment rate today would still be at a steady seven percent. This means that the results have actually come as a positive surprise to Canada. However, many experts are warning that the numbers should be considered with some caution.

The Canadian job market is volatile enough that the encouraging figures we see today could be gone within a matter of days. Consideration of the previous six surveys showed that:

* 11,000 jobs were shed in August

* 42,000 were created in July

* 9,400 were dropped in June

* 25,800 were added in May

* 28,900 were dropped in April

* 42,900 were added in March

Inconsistency is the Norm

The see-saw of economic unrest means that the central bank are unlikely to raise their forecasts overnight from the 1% mark it has been stuck at for four years. However, if numbers remain positive, then new forecasts may be released during the final quarter of 2015.

Dr Steinbock is an internationally recognized expert of the multipolar world. He focuses on international business, international relations, investment and risk among all major advanced economies and large emerging economies. In addition to advisory activities (www.differencegroup.net), he is affiliated with India China and America Institute (USA), Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and EU Center (Singapore). For more, please see http://www.differencegroup.net/. Research Director of International Business at India China and America Institute (USA) and Visiting Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore).

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